Valentino Rossi has trouble with taxes

Reports in the Italian press says that top MotoGP star is being quizzed about 60 milion euros undeclared revenues.

Valentino Rossi may be fast enough to be multiple-times MotoGP champion, but he can't outrun the taxman. Italy's biggest newspapers are reporting that the 'Moto Genius' is in trouble for allegedly dodging 60 million euros worth of taxes. Phwoar!

According to La Stampa and Corriere della Sera, the evasions began in 2000 when he officially moved to the UK. This meant he no longer paid taxes in Italy, but he also made the most of the UK's 'resident but not domiciled' laws by declaring only what he earned on our shores (peanuts, if those). So all the lucrative sponsorship deals and the millions made from his Yamaha contract were, allegedly of course, tax-free. Allegedly again, profits from these went straight into companies set up by Rossi's tax advisors in Dublin, London and in other countries to put the taxman off his trail.

If Rossi's found guilty of tax evasion on such a humongous scale, the punishment's a hefty prison sentence. And there were we thinking he'd moved to Blighty for the weather!